About eight years ago I was having my watch serviced at Rowland jewelers in Rockford, Illinois. Like many decaying, formerly industrial cities in the rust belt, Rockford, has had an unusually large number of real artisans who grew old, but never left.
This jeweler looked to be well into his ‘90s, and one of the documents on his wall belonged to his grandfather. It seems he was a Canadian who went south to join the Union army at the age of 17. He apparently married a much younger bride long after the war, and I was having my watchband replaced by his grandson.
It’s incredible how few generations back some families go to the civil war.
my father came here from Italy in the 1920s and my mother’s parents from Sicily I think in the 1910s.
Pop was only about 6.
I guess in historical terms, a family being in a country a hundred years is not a whole lot